Data-Architect Salesforce Certified Platform Data Architect (Plat-Arch-201) Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

 A sound data archiving strategy is essential for ensuring scalability and performance of any application that deals with large volumes of data. You need to consider factors like data retention policies, storage limits, backup and recovery options, and data access requirements when designing a data archiving solution2. You can use tools like OwnBackup, Odaseva, or ArchiveIt to archive your data from Salesforce to external systems

The correct answer is C, create a geolocation custom field to maintain this requirement. A geolocation custom field is a compound field that can store both latitude and longitude information in a single field. It also supports geolocation functions and distance calculations. Creating formula fields or custom fields for latitude and longitude separately would be inefficient and redundant. Recommending app exchange packages would not be a direct solution to the requirement.

The two recommended options to assign Account ownership to mitigate potential performance problems are to let a “system user” own all the Account records without assigning any role to this user in Role Hierarchy, or to let a “system user” own the Account records and assign this user to the lowest-level role in the Role Hierarchy. This is because these options would reduce the number of sharing calculations and rules that need to be applied to the Account records, and improve the performance and scalability of the system34. The other options are not recommended, as they would increase the sharing complexity and overhead, and potentially expose sensitive data to unauthorized users.

Key stakeholders from both systems should collaborate with the Architect to determine which system is the system of record on a field level is what the Architect should do to achieve this goal of integrating two different systems with customer records into the Salesforce Account object using Master Data Management. The system of record is the authoritative source of truth for a given entity or field in a given context. Different systems may have different levels of accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or relevance for different fields. Therefore, it is important to involve key stakeholders from both systems who have knowledge and expertise about their data quality and business needs to decide which system should be the system of record for each field. The Architect should facilitate this collaboration and document the decisions and rationale for each field. The other options are not correct or feasible, as they would either delegate or abdicate the responsibility of determining the system of record, ignore or disregard the input from key stakeholders, or assume or impose a default system of record without considering the data quality and business needs.

According to the Salesforce documentation, a hub-and-spoke model is an integration architecture pattern that allows connecting multiple Salesforce orgs using a central org (hub) and one or more secondary orgs (spokes). The hub org acts as the master data source and orchestrates the data flow between the spoke orgs. The spoke orgs act as the consumers or producers of the data and communicate with the hub org.

To orchestrate data between the hub org and spoke orgs, a data architect should use:

A middleware solution that extracts and distributes data across both the hub and spokes (option A). This means using an external service or tool that can connect to multiple Salesforce orgs using APIs or connectors, and perform data extraction, transformation, and distribution operations between the hub and spoke orgs. This can provide a scalable, flexible, and reliable way to orchestrate data across multiple orgs.

Developing custom APIs to poll the hub org for change data and push into the spoke orgs (option B) is not a good solution, as it can be complex, costly, and difficult to maintain. It may also not be able to handle large volumes of data or complex transformations efficiently. Developing custom APIs to poll the spoke orgs for change data and push into the hub org (option C) is also not a good solution, as it can have the same drawbacks as option B. It may also not be able to handle conflicts or errors effectively. Using a backup and archive solution that extracts and restores data across orgs (option D) is also not a good solution, as it can incur additional costs and dependencies. It may also not be able to handle real-time or near-real-time data orchestration requirements.

 Clearing the role field in the generic user record and creating a role at the top of the role hierarchy and assigning it to the generic user are two measures that can help avoid performance issues while working with large number of order records. These measures can prevent data skew and lock contention that may occur when a single user owns or shares a large number of records

Analytics/BI Owners and Data Domain Stewards are appropriate roles as members of a team that makes decisions on enterprise-wide data governance. Analytics/BI Owners are responsible for defining the business requirements and metrics for data analysis and reporting, and Data Domain Stewards are responsible for defining and enforcing the data quality standards and rules for specific data domains. Salesforce Administrators and Operational Data Users are not suitable roles for this team, as they are more focused on the operational aspects of data management, such as configuration, maintenance, and usage.

 Acquiring an AppExchange Lead de-duplication application and implementing Salesforce Matching and Duplicate Rules are two approaches that the manager at Cloud Kicks should take to avoid creating duplicate records when importing Leads into Salesforce. An AppExchange Lead de-duplication application can provide additional features and functionality for finding and preventing duplicate Leads during import, such as fuzzy matching, custom rules, mass merge, etc. Salesforce Matching and Duplicate Rules can allow the manager to define how Salesforce identifies duplicate Leads based on various criteria and how users can handle them during import, such as blocking, allowing, or alerting them. The other options are not feasible or effective for avoiding duplicate records, as they would either not work during import, not provide de-duplication capabilities, or require additional customization.

To improve the dashboard performance, the data architect should use selective queries to reduce the amount of data being returned, de-normalize the data by reducing the number of joins, and reduce the amount of data queried by archiving unused opportunity records. These options will help optimize the query performance, reduce the query complexity, and free up storage space. Option C is incorrect because removing widgets from the dashboard to reduce the number of graphics loaded will not affect the dashboard performance significantly, and may reduce the usability and functionality of the dashboard. Option D is incorrect because running the dashboard for CEO and sending it via email will not improve the dashboard performance, but rather shift the burden to another user.

Salesforce Connect is a feature that allows users to access data from external sources and multiple Salesforce orgs, using either clicks or code. Salesforce Connect can provide read-only access to customer records across all NTO orgs, without replicating or storing the data in Salesforce.

The correct answer is B, use data classification metadata fields available in field definition. Data classification metadata fields are standard fields that allow you to classify the sensitivity level of your data based on your organization’s policies. You can use these fields to indicate whether a field contains confidential, restricted, or general data. These fields are available for both standard and custom objects in Salesforce. Using app exchange products, creating a custom picklist field, or building reports would not be as effective or consistent as using data classification metadata fields.

A required Lookup relationship ensures that the Shipment record must have a value for each of the three parent records, and also prevents the deletion of those parent records if they are referenced by a Shipment record. A Master-Detail relationship would not allow separate sharing models for each custom object, and a VLOOKUP formula field would not enforce the relationship or prevent deletion

According to Trailhead2, Salesforce Connect is a feature that allows administrators to integrate external data sources with Salesforce without copying or synchronizing the data. Salesforce Connect can use external objects to display the external data in Salesforce as if it were stored in Salesforce objects, enabling seamless user experience and real-time access. Option B is the correct answer because it suggests using Salesforce Connect and an external object to display the order history in Salesforce. Option A is incorrect because using an Apex callout to populate a text area field for displaying the order history can be inefficient and unreliable, as it requires making an HTTP request for each customer record and storing the order history as unstructured text. Option C is incorrect because importing the order history into a custom Salesforce object, update nightly can consume a lot of storage space and cause data latency, as the order history may change more frequently than once a night. Option D is incorrect because embedding the ERP system in an iframe and displaying on a custom tab can degrade the user experience and security, as it requires switching between tabs and authenticating with another system.

Consolidating the data from each org into a centralized datastore is the best suggestion to achieve a 360-degree view of the customer. This way, UC can have a single source of truth for all customer data and avoid data silos and inconsistencies. The other options are not feasible because they either require complex integration, additional cost, or data duplication.

A data quality problem that could cause customers to be called by multiple Sales Reps is having duplicate Contact records in the system. Duplicate records can result from data entry errors, data imports, or integrations with other systems. Duplicate records can lead to confusion, inefficiency, and customer dissatisfaction

Changing the opportunity amount field access to read only for sales users using field level security is the best way to address the overriding issue. This way, the sales users can still view the opportunity amount field but cannot edit it, and PPS can update it as the trusted source

Leveraging Heroku Connect and Heroku Postgres, middleware tools, or Salesforce Connect and the cross-org adapter are all viable options to share data between Org A and Org B in near-real time3. Installing a 3rd party AppExchange tool may not provide bidirectional sync or may have additional costs. Developing an Apex class that pushes opportunity data between orgs daily via the Apex schedule may not meet the near-real time requirement.

 Implementing a custom big object to store the data is the best recommendation to reduce the performance degradation of the platform, as it allows storing large volumes of data that do not need real-time access or reporting. Custom big objects can be defined using metadata API or developer console, and support up to 1 billion records per object. Creating a custom object or using the standard order object would consume a lot of storage space and impact the performance of queries and reports. Using a standard big object defined by salesforce would not be applicable for order records, as standard big objects are predefined for specific use cases such as audit trails or field history.

The three considerations needed prior to a SF Connect implementation are to develop an object relationship strategy, identify the external tables to sync into external objects, and assess whether the external data source is reachable via an ODATA endpoint. SF Connect is a feature that allows integrating external data sources with Salesforce using external objects. External objects are similar to custom objects, but they store metadata only and not data. They enable on-demand access to external data via standard Salesforce APIs and user interfaces. To implement SF Connect, a data architect needs to consider how the external objects will relate to other objects in Salesforce, which external tables will be exposed as external objects, and whether the external data source supports ODATA protocol for data access.